Joe Maddon, Ohtani’s manager with the Angels from 2020 to June 2022, asked:
“Was he that married to baseball?”
The answer, those in Ohtani’s orbit say, was yes. Experts say such single-mindedness is not uncommon among Japanese athletes. But while many players who moved from Japan to the majors showed intense focus, Ohtani’s single-mindedness as both a pitcher and hitter is a level above.
Even though the article was focused more on the relationships around Ohtani, particularly Ippei Mizuhara, his interpreter that pilfered almost $17 million from Ohtani to satisfy his gambling debts, I was most interested in Ohtani’s intense focus to simply be the best, to be great. “One former Angels employee,” the article continues,
described Ohtani’s work-life balance as “99 to 1” in favor of work. He was so regimented in his daily preparation as a pitcher and hitter, the employee said, “it was not in his mind space to enjoy the moment.” Ohtani would take an iPad home to watch the next day’s starting pitcher. He even monitored his sleep — Sports Illustrated reported Ohtani strives for 10 hours a night, plus a two-hour nap before a game — through a wearable device.
Ten hours of sleep plus a two hour nap before the game. Half his day is spent sleeping, the other half is spent working on and becoming the absolute best baseball player he can be.
I’ve latched onto this article today because I am tired of consistently being disappointed with myself whenever I don’t live up to whatever lofty standards I want to meet, and I know I won’t ever be great at something like Ohtani is great at baseball, nor do I actually want to be great like him at any one thing, but I am tired of any and all excuses I come up with for not doing something I want to do. I want to do a lot of things, and I would love to be great at them, but at the very least, I want to respect myself and the things I want to do, and I don’t think I am. I feel like I’m consistently disrespecting myself and the things I want to accomplish, and I feel like I’ve lost my focus. The coronavirus obviously did not help, but if I’m being truthful to myself, I feel like I had lost it years before that.
One way I’ve tried to motivate myself is by reminding myself of what I have done and what I have accomplished, but instead of having that energize me, it drains me. I’ve read books and tried productivity systems and I’ve tried building habits and so many other things, and yet… I’m still here, frustrated and angry and depressed and a million other things. Again, I’m not comparing myself to Ohtani because he’s such a unicorn, but what I am doing is looking at his motivation to be great to my own lack of motivation to even read a book, let alone writing one.
I’m frustrated because I used to have this insane level of motivation to push myself to become something greater than my own imagination could conjure up, and it’s just gone now. Where did it go? Fuck, it’s frustrating. Where did it go? I don’t know, and I have no idea where to even begin to find it again.
The end of summer is soon, and while I’m looking forward to fall, I’m going to miss this summer. Five months ago to the day, I wrote an essay that laid the foundation for what became one of my best summers, a summer that changed my life. Even though it began with one of the darkest periods of my life, it ended with such beautiful memories and a reminder of who I am. Not who I wish I was, but who I am. I didn’t get everything I wanted—who does?—but I did get what I needed, and what I needed was to be reminded of how big and beautiful the world is, and that my role in it has yet to be written completely.
In that aforementioned post, I wrote that Montana, my home for the past ten years, didn’t feel like home. “It still feels like I’m passing through,” I wrote. What I wanted, what I had been dreaming about for the past few years, was to leave Montana and embark on a new adventure, to go somewhere else. Whether that was another 10 year adventure or something else, I didn’t say. I didn’t say because I didn’t know. I didn’t know where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go, or how I wanted to go—I just knew I wanted to go. So I wrote my thoughts down, and after I published them on my website, I shared the link on Facebook. I wanted my friends to know what I was thinking and feeling, and on the whole, those that read my thoughts gave me encouraging words of support. And it even resonated beyond my friend group. I received more email feedback on that post than anything else I had ever written. Complete strangers emailed me to offer their own stories similar to mine, and this connection with others made me feel like I was on the right path.
Turned out, I wasn’t.
One of my great realizations this summer came in my notebook. Since the first of January, I have been writing journal entries in my notebook every morning, day in and day out, all year, and I’ve yet to miss a day. I made a deal with myself earlier this year, but instead of writing more posts for my website, I devoted all my energy writing in my notebooks. I’ve filled hundreds and hundreds of pages in my notebooks, and I see no signs of slowing down. Clearly, I’ve spent lots of time with my thoughts, exploring them, analyzing them, understanding them, and one of the thoughts that changed everything for me came after one of the darkest periods of my life.
In early June, I didn’t want to live anymore. At least, that’s how I felt. I felt like I was wasting space, like I wasted so much of my life doing nothing, being nothing. There were many days where I didn’t want to get out of bed. What was the point? I felt like I was going to waste the day anyway. I didn’t trust myself to live, and at that point, why bother waking up anymore? But I kept waking up anyway, I kept making my coffee, I kept sitting by my desk with my notebook and pen, and I kept writing. All I had was my writing, and quite literally, my writing saved my life. I had to convince myself to live, to keep waking up, to keep taking that first step, to keep breathing, and I did convince myself, and my writing was the motivating force behind it all. It’s hard to explain exactly what was going on in my life at that time, why I was feeling that then, but I did feel these things, and I remember how exhausted I felt by the end of each day, exhausted of living, of fighting through it all and making it to another bedtime.
“I didn’t want to get out of bed because I didn’t know what to do,” I wrote in my notebook back then. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to live. I’m tired of coming up with excuses. I’m just tired. I’m tired of not trusting myself to do the right thing, to do what’s right for me.” On another page, I wrote, “What do I want out of life? To not wake up sad every morning. To spend more time with the people I care about. To meet new people. To take risks. To not be afraid to live.” On another page, I asked myself, “Why don’t I know how to live?”
It was in the asking of these questions that I found my answer. What I learned is that no one knows how to live. Not really. We’re all just making it up as we go along, aren’t we? Human nature is the same for everyone but our experiences and lives are our own. They are unique to us, and that’s what makes life worth living, isn’t it? To live however we were built to live? And I wanted to live. I did, and I do. Each day is my chance to live well, and why would I want to give that up? Around mid-June, I decided that I was tired of coming up with excuses, and I decided to simply live, to spend more time with the people I care about; to meet new people; to take risks; to not be afraid to live anymore.
And it was here where I realized something, but I only realized it after I lived a little.
The first thing I did was to rediscover my courage. Somewhere over the past decade I grew used to living behind my walls, and because of that, I grew anxious whenever I left my home. I didn’t want to be seen, and because of that, I didn’t live the way I wanted to live. Fuck that, I remember thinking. I’m done. And I was. Again, I can’t really explain what exactly happened here, but it was like a light switch had been flicked on, and I could see clearly again. My mindset shift was a bit confrontational. See me, I remember thinking whenever I left my home. See me walk down the street. See me buy groceries. See me live.
Through this, everything else just… happened. I hung out with friends (and turtles), and I had a great time. I went exploring, and I had a great time. I went hiking, and I had a great time. I again hung out with friends (and cows), and I had a great time. I went on more hikes, and I had a great time. I even had lunch with a new friend, and I had a great time. I did what I wanted to do, and I had a great time. I put myself out there again, and I forgot what it felt like to be seen again. Whether it was just in my head or for real, this feeling of being seen again felt so good. Feels so good.
By simply living, I realized that where I lived didn’t matter. What mattered was me. What mattered was living. And I lived this summer. I lived like I hadn’t lived in a long, long time. And now, again, I don’t know what to do. What path should I be treading? Should I leave? Should I stay? Does it matter? It doesn’t because home is wherever I decide to be, and if I choose to be here, then I’m on the right path; if I choose to live there, then I’m on the right path. The right path is what I make it, and this was my great realization.
I don’t know what the future holds, and quite frankly, I don’t care. What I care about is right now, this moment, this breath. As long as I have moments to experience and breaths to breathe, I’m happy. As long as I have friends to hang out with, friends to worry about and who worry about me, I’m happy. As long as I’m being seen again and not scurrying behind my walls, I’m happy. And this summer was like a dream come true, a dream of beauty and hope and happiness, a dream I wish will never end.
